


New Perspectives

by sarcasmartist



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Injury, Insecure Keith (Voltron), Insecure Lance (Voltron), Kind of canon divergent, M/M, Missing Loved Ones, Religious Content, Religious Discussion, Shiro (Voltron) is Missing, Stranded, Team Bonding, Teamwork, cursing, shiro allura and coran are mentioned but yknow, stuff is implied here, talking about their feelings for once, when isnt he lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-02
Packaged: 2018-12-23 05:33:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11983221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcasmartist/pseuds/sarcasmartist
Summary: Lance and Keith crash land on one of many moons surrounding a desolate gas giant after a fight with the Galra that got a bit out of hand. Their lions shut down so the two paladins are left to their own devices while they wait. Injured and with no way to contact the rest of their team, they are left in each other's company which may or may not be a bad thing.-------------Takes place during early on in season 3, and is kinda canon divergent.I would be willing to add more parts in the future if people like it/want more!





	New Perspectives

_Scene: A seemingly desolate moon covered in towering stalagmites and similar rock formations. In the sky are what seem to be many similar moons, and a massive gas giant off in the distance. There are two large craters that overlap one another, and in the center of each lays a lion. The black lion managed to land on its feet, but the red lion crashed onto its side. The pilot seemingly made no effort to fix it. In fact, there was absolutely no signs that the pilots were moving at all. Until..._

The first thing Lance felt when he started coming to was a feeling of heaviness. It pulled on his entire body, which was sprawled against the side wall of Red. His vision was blurred, and every muscle in his body ached. He managed to pull himself back into the seat, and attempted to turn on Red. She wasn't responding. She must have been pretty damaged in the firefight up there, and from the crash. After all, Red was built for speed and agility, not for soaking up heavy fire. Lance decided that the best course of action was the let Red rest for the time being. Maybe he might rest too. His head was swimming, and his vision was still not right even after sitting still for a while. His body was so heavy, and he was just so  _tired._  A short nap wouldn't hurt anyone right?

"Lance?" A voice pierced the silence within Red, startling Lance into alertness, "Lance, do you read me?" His helmet was lying near where he woke up. Why didn't he notice it wasn't on his head? He reached down and grabbed it, putting it on his head. He let out a small noise of disgust when he felt the surprisingly damp interior of the helmet touch his scalp. "Lance? Is that you?"

"Yeah, I'm here Keith," Lance replied, reluctantly putting the helmet all the way on, "How's the Black Lion holding up? Red's taking a rest."

"She's okay, for the most part," Keith grunted, "But a rest wouldn't be a bad idea for her either." Lance could hear Keith moving around inside the other lion. Presumably, he was coming to check up on Lance, so the blue paladin decided to meet him in the middle. He got his bearings, and started to make his way out of the lion. It was difficult because everything was topsy-turvy already, never mind his wonky vision, and it felt like something was very wrong with his right knee. He progressed, however, hoping that the new leader of Voltron had some kind of plan as to what to do now. They were, after all, kind of stranded on a single moon that looked just like the tons of others that orbited this gas giant, on a mission that was just supposed to be stealth and reconnaissance. They weren't expected back for a little while yet. At least the Galra would struggle with finding them. At least, he hoped they would.

Lance eventually stumbled out of Red in time to see Keith slowly approaching. He picked up his pace once he saw Lance, however, a look of alarm on his face. Without asking, or saying even a single word at all, Keith pulled Lance's helmet off, and started inspecting his head.

"Keith, what the heck!" Lance took a step back on instinct, wincing as he put too much weight on his injured knee.

"Your head," Keith said, putting himself back into Lance's personal space, this time one of his hands turning Lance's head to the left, "your  _eye._  Lance, can you see? Do you feel dizzy? Tired?"

"Kind of, a little bit, and very, why?"

"Don't go to sleep Lance, okay?" Keith started leading him towards the Black Lion. Lance noticed that Keith was almost dragging one foot as he walked.

"But  _why?"_ Lance moved to support Keith, one arm going around the shorter guy's shoulders while forcing Keith's arm over his own. "Geez, you can ask for help you know," he mumbled.

"Your head is bleeding, and your eye looks..." he cringed, seemingly unable to bring himself to finish the sentence. "C'mon, I'm going to try and get in contact with the castle. I think I have something that can stop the bleeding, at the very least." The two paladins slowly made their way over to the Black Lion. However, once they got there, it seemed that she was out of commission as well. "Dammit!" Keith huffed. He let out a small, frustrated grunt before deciding to sit at the bottom of one of the lion's huge paws. Lance was grateful to sit, splaying out his injured leg and leaning back against the hard metal of the ship. His helmet was placed in his lap, and he heard Keith attempting to send out a call through the helmet's com system. They both knew it wouldn't work, but it never hurts to try, right?

Lance picked up his helmet, flipping it so he could look inside. Sure enough, there was blood covering a significant part of it, but that's probably from getting tossed around so much. Hopefully. He tentatively touched a hand to his face, swallowing hard when he felt the drying blood on his forehead and cheek. He looked back at Keith. It was hard to read him, what with one eye supposedly out of commission, but he seemed frustrated. He could sense the red paladin's tensed muscles. He pulled off his own helmet, and looked as though he was going to throw it. Lance started to reach out to stop him when Keith closed his eyes and took in several deep breaths. It sounded like he murmured something to himself, but Lance didn't quite catch it.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

"We're too far away. They'll figure it out soon, or our lions will wake up and we can go back. You know, whichever comes first."

"Mmm," Keith hummed in reply, looking up at the sky, "I guess." A beat. "Did you hurt anything else?"

"My knee's bust," Lance said, gesturing to his splayed out leg, "and my entire body feels like one giant bruise, but other than that I'm feelin' pretty good." He flashed a joking grin at the other paladin, but his focus was still on the sky. "How about you? I saw your foot, looks kinda nasty."

"I'm fine," Keith said. The way he said it was meant to make Lance stop asking. Everyone and their mother knew that wasn't enough to keep Lance quiet, but Keith still did it regardless. It always amazed the former blue paladin a bit.

"Yeah, okay,  _sure_ you are," Lance rolled his eyes, his tone turning mocking, " _Oh look at me! I'm Keith! I'm the invincible part Galra leader of Voltron! Nothing can ever hurt me because I'm so cool and badass!"_

"You think I'm a cool badass?" Keith glanced over at Lance, a sly smile creeping onto his face.

"Oh come on!"

"Fine, fine," Keith huffed, turning his head to Lance, "I think my ankle is shattered, a couple rib fractures, and my back is  _killing_  me."

"So, sounds like we both had successful landings, huh?"

"Apparently so."

A silence befell them after that. It wasn't an uncomfortable one per say, but there was something heavy in the air around them. It was a waiting game that neither of them were eager to play. There wasn't really any way to tell how much time had passed while they sat there against the paw of the Black Lion, which made the waiting seem that much worse. How long had they been there? Five minutes? Five hours? The light on the moon didn't seem to change much at all, but it was hard to tell if that was because they hadn't been there long or if it had something to do with how it orbited the gas giant. Lance was starting to get tired again. He wanted to just take a nap, sleep until the others got there or until Keith woke him up saying that the lions were ready to go again.

 "Stop that." Keith hit Lance's chest, causing him to jolt.

"Hey! What was that for?" Lance protested angrily.

"Don't fall asleep, that's the worst thing you could do right now." The red paladin sounded so serious, so  _authoritative._  Perhaps he was adjusting to the role of leader a lot better than Lance had thought.

"Why not? I'm  _tired_ , _"_  Lance whined, shutting his eyes. He felt Keith hit his chest again. "Ow!"

"If you fall asleep with a head injury like that you could slip into a coma and  _die!_ "

"Really?" Lance asked, "Because that sounds like something you'd see on WebMD."

"Yes, really!" Keith seemed a bit angry now. "You'll go to sleep and you might never wake up again. I can't-Voltron can't afford to lose another person." Keith looked away from the other paladin, and back up at the sky. "Not if I can help it."

"Keith..." Lance reached to place a gentle hand on his leader's shoulder. However, due to his lack of depth perception, it turned more into a shove. The red paladin gave him a questioning look. "Sorry, one eye. That was supposed to be a meaningful gesture of support." Keith scoffed, then looked away again. "I know that losing Shiro has been really rough on you. Now you have to take over this team, and find him all over again. But we're here for you. You know that, right? Right?"

"Stop."

"The whole team, Keith. Allura and Coran too."

" _Lance._ "

"We all want to help you. You don't have to go through all this by yourself. You have a team now, Keith."

" _Stop it, Lance!"_  Keith snapped, "Just stop! How could you possibly understand-"

"You're not the only one who lost Shiro, Keith! He was our friend too! We all want him back, we all-"

"Then why don't you ever act like it? You're always cracking jokes, flirting with all these girls all the time; you never take  _anything_  seriously Everything is just one big joke to you!"

"We can't fight a war if we're all angry or afraid or sad, Keith! We can't work together if we're fighting all the time! I make jokes because it's better to make everyone smile for a bit and laugh at something stupid than it is to cry or be scared or miss my mom!" Lance's eyes widened, and he clamped a hand over his mouth after he stopped yelling. He looked away from Keith's burning, furious gaze. He tried to make the tears go away but they just kept coming. He started to wipe at his face with his hands when he whispered, "I didn't ask for this, Keith. I just want to see my mama again."

Lance refused to look at Keith. He couldn't let him see him like this. He was the jokester, the guy who made everyone groan when he opened his mouth, the hopeless flirt and the chatterbox. Deep down, he was as scared as everybody; he longed to go back home and dreamed of seeing his family again. He didn't ask to get launched into space and become one of the defenders of the  _entire universe_  and have to fight in a war he never knew existed until he was thrown in the middle of it. None of them did. They were all just  _kids_ , it wasn't  _fair_  that the weight of trillions or quadrillions of lives now rested on their young shoulders. But he'd never complain about it. It wasn't fair that the Galra were doing this to people, it wasn't fair that Shiro and Pidge's dad and brother got abducted, it wasn't fair that Allura and Coran were the last of their race left, it wasn't fair that Hunk got dragged into this because of Lance, and it wasn't fair that Keith got left alone in a desert, wondering who he was and searching for a friend that everyone else had given up on.  _Nothing_  that had happened was fair, and Lance knew that. So he tried his very best to make sure that everyone could laugh once in awhile. Take things less seriously every now and then. Have someone to yell at when they were frustrated and needed to let it out, but didn't until he poked and prodded and goaded them to. He wanted to  _something_  to make it all seem a little less unfair.

"I'm..." Keith started to speak, his voice uncharacteristically quiet, "I looked for him for over a year. I finally had him back, and then... He's just  _gone_  again. I don't  _know_  how to be a leader. I don't know what to do or where to start looking. So much has happened so fast and I just..."

"We're all scared, Keith," Lance said, "I mean, look at us-we're fighting in an  _intergalactic war_. That's something we never thought we'd end up doing. And now here we are, stranded on a random moon with two giant robot lion space ships, half blind and with a shattered ankle. I guess being a defender of the universe isn't all it's cracked up to be, eh?" He gave Keith a smile, but it faltered once he realized he just cracked a joke during this very serious moment. However, instead of chiding him or rolling his eyes, Keith smiled. And then he started to laugh. Lance started to laugh with him, until the red paladin hissed in pain and wheezed.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, fine," Keith breathed, "It just hurts to laugh."

"The one time I make you laugh and your ribs are broken. It's like the universe wants us to fight all the time!" Lance crossed his arms across his chest in a childish and perhaps purposefully over dramatic manner. He heard Keith chuckled next to him, and then hiss again.

"Stop that." It was sounded like it was supposed to be a threat, but Keith said it through a smile.

"Make me." Lance made his sound equally defiant and jovial. There was a slightly tense pause after he said that, and then he received a light punch on his shoulder. Now Lance was the one groaning in pain. But then he looked back up at Keith, and he smiled. The red paladin smiled back. They looked at one another like this for a moment before Lance sighed, shifting his injured leg and staring up at the sky like Keith had earlier.

Some time had passed, and Lance was trying his hardest not to nod off. Really, he was. But with each passing minute, it became harder and harder to keep his eyes open. The complete silence didn't help. Keith wasn't too into talking, and the two of them didn't really have great chemistry anyways. It was like trying to stay awake during algebra after only getting three hours of sleep; that is to say, impossible. His eyelids fluttered again, but for whatever reason, he thought he saw something off in the distance. He couldn't really tell what it was because everything was kind of blurry, or even if it was something at all. He sat up, leaning forward a bit. He still couldn't really see anything. Curse his injured eye.

"What are you doing?" Keith asked.

"I thought I saw something," Lance replied. He gestured to the area in front of him. "It looked like something was moving over there. I can't see anything now though."

"I wouldn't really trust your vision right now, Lance."

"It's not as bad as it probably looks! I can still see, everything's just really blurry on the right side, that's all."

Keith crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah, because that's better."

"Better than being completely  _blind_." Lance leaned back against the leg of the Black Lion and huffed. So what, Keith wasn't listening to him? It wasn't the first time, and it probably wouldn't be the last. It was just infuriating to know that if it was anyone else Keith might just heed their words and want to keep a lookout.

"Sorry," Keith mumbled, "You just hit your head pretty hard, and your eye is very... Uh, nevermind." The apology surprised Lance slightly, but he wasn't going to complain. Plus, Keith did have a solid point there.

Lance looked over at the other paladin and noticed that he too now looked somewhat uncomfortable, as if he was now getting the feeling that they were being watched. He watched him clutch onto his bayard, his eyes scanning the area around them. As far as Lance could see-which was not very far at all-there was nothing. Maybe he really did imagine it. He leaned back against the giant paw of the lion and tried to adjust his leg. Pain shot up through it so he decided to just leave it alone again because it was probably fine right where it was.

"Did you see that?"

Lance sat up again and gave Keith a look.

" _Lance_  you know what I mean."

"No, I didn't see anything. Why, did you?"

Keith looked back at the area in front of them, the black bayard activating and taking on it's sword form. Looks like he did see something. Lance quickly followed suit with his own bayard, making it turn into the sniper rifle form. Hopefully the scope would help with the whole partially blind thing. He held the scope of the rifle up to his eye, wincing slightly as he rested the butt of the gun against his shoulder. He wasn't really exaggerating when he said that his entire body was one big bruise.

The blue paladin scanned the area around them slowly, looking for any signs of movement. Thanks to the scope, he could see rather clearly since it required that his bad eye be closed anyways. He went back and forth like that slowly several times, but didn't see a single sign of another living thing. He was about to put down the bayard and give Keith the all clear when suddenly the new leader of Voltron stood up. Lance immediately tried to follow suit, but stopped when pain shot up his injured leg. He was genuinely surprised that the red paladin was still able to hold a fighting stance with his ankle twisted in a direction that was vaguely unholy, but now didn't seem like that time to say anything about it.

Then the blue paladin heard it. An odd sort of low pitched growl with a bit of a reverb too it, making it sound like it was several growls rather than just a single one. The only reason he could figure out it wasn't multiple creatures was because a pale, snake bodied thing had just revealed it's presence and was looking at them with six yellow-green eyes. It's head was almost spearheaded in a way, starting bulkier where it met the neck and shoulders and thinning out to a sort of rounded point. Several rows of needle-like teeth were revealed as the creature opened it's mouth to let out a louder screech with the same sort of reverb the growl had. It's six oddly shaped legs each had a foot with several large claws attached that looked like they could easily shred the two of them. It was big, larger than the both of them for sure, and both paladins got the sinking feeling that it was probably hungry.

Lance slowly raised his rifle back up to his eye. If he could get a good, clean shot through it's head before it decided to strike, the fight would be over before it began.

"Keith," Lance hissed, keeping his voice as low and calm as possible, "Don't move. I'm going to try and take a shot."

"Are you sure you can do it?" Keith hissed back. Lance could tell the red paladin was beginning to grow antsy. He had to make this quick.

"Just hold on a second, don't move." The blue paladin slowly adjusted the rifle as the creature looked back and forth between the two of them. There was a acidic green drool leaking from it's mouth on the ground below it. Nasty. Lance took in a deep breath as he finally got into the right position. As he looked at the creature through the scope, he could see an unnerving sort of intelligence in it's eyes. Lance was just about to pull the trigger when the creature looked directly at him, right through the scope, and charged.

Oh quiznack.

Lance fired, but the shot merely grazed it's shoulder. It shrieked, now seemingly just pissed off, and ran at him with an even more determined pace. Keith quickly moved to intercept, raising his sword and coming down hard on it's spine. It shrieked again, now turning it's attention to the red paladin. Lance fired off another few shots as the creature and Keith went at one another, trying his very best to avoid hitting Keith; he couldn't predict where the red paladin was going to be next, coupled with how fast and how agile the creature was. One thing he did notice, however, through all the chaos of a frenzied Keith attempted to fight off the massive creature while simultaneously trying not to use his bad foot and shield his rib was that their attacks didn't seem to be doing much. There were small scratches and burns where the sword and Lance's shots had hit it's hide, but there was no blood and it didn't necessarily seem greatly affected by any of it.

"Keith!" Lance shouted after landing a shot on on of it's middle legs, "This thing's skin is pretty tough! We have to find a weak spot somewhere!"

"Like what, the underbelly? The face?" Keith just barely dodged a swipe but one of it's feet, "Just keep firing or something, I'm a little occupied!" Lance hugged, taking another shot and missing by about an inch. He figured that the red paladin wouldn't necessarily heed his words, but his frustrated suggestions weren't bad. He steadied the gun in his hands and waited for an oppurtunity to shoot it's underbelly. The moment came as Keith struck an upward blow on the creature's front most shoulder, causing it to stand up on it's four hind legs. He hit it, and the creature let out a wail. He looked at the wound and saw that it did look worse than the others, so perhaps underbelly was the way to go until either him or Keith could get the killing blow off.

"Keith," Lance called again, "Underbelly!" He saw Keith looking at the new hole in the creature's body, and immediately went for it. The creature tried to bring itself down on top of him, but the red paladin slid underneath it, dragging his sword along it's stomach as he did. It looked really cool from where Lance was sitting, though there was no way he was going to tell Keith that.

The creature roared with pain and presumably rage as it tried to use it's hind legs to tear at the red paladin. Lance popped another shot off at one of it's feet that got a little too close to Keith's face, causing it to recoil and giving Keith an opening to scramble back onto it's feet. The creature screeched back at him, and looked like it was going to lunge for him when it suddenly turned it's focus back to Lance. Uh-oh. It started to charge him again, a dark sickly green fluid beginning to ooze from it's wounds. It was closing in fast, and it was shaking off his hastily fired shots with no problem. It locked eyes with him, and Lance swore that those yellow-green eyes were going to be the very last thing he was ever going to see before he died when the creature was suddenly thrown off course. Those eyes looked so surprised as both it and the blue paladin turned their heads to see Keith throwing his entire body at it in an attempt to sort of tackle it, in a way.

The red paladin and the creature rolled for a couple feet and landed in a heap. Keith was the first to recover, taking a few desperate hacks at it's now exposed underbelly. It threw him off and sent him flying, the black bayard falling from his hand. He landed hard just a few feet next to Lance, groaning in pain. The creature looked between the two of them for just a moment before deciding to finish off Keith first. Keith slowly sat up, picking his head up in time to see that the creature was almost on top of him. It opened it's mouth the let out another reverberated shriek when Lance fired off one last Hail Mary of a shot.

Time felt like it was moving in slow motion as Lance watched the single blue streak of light fly towards the creature. The blue paladin could feel his heart beating in his chest and felt the sweat dripping down his forehead. He couldn't bare to look and see if he made it but he couldn't tear his eyes away. The creature's deafening shriek mixed with the blood roaring in his ears was all he could hear in that singular moment.

Suddenly, the shriek had stopped. The shot had hit the creature in the roof of it's wide opened mouth, piercing through the soft gums and into it's skull. It collapsed violent into a heap as more of the sickly green ooze leaked from a new wound in it's mouth and the top of it's head.

A moment passed.

Then another.

The creature did not stir.

Slowly, the two paladins looked at each other with wide eyes. Keith's breathing was labored and wheezy as he grabbed his bayard and crawled back over to sit next to Lance against the paw of the Black Lion. They sat there like that in total silence for a moment, the only sound was their breathing and their pounding hearts as they came down from the rush of the fight. They looked at each other, and Lance let out a whoop of victory.

"That was  _awesome!_ " Lance said. He looked over at the red paladin with a sort of sparkle in his eyes and a smile on his face. "When you slid under it with your sword and totally wrecked it's day! Man, it was like watching an action movie."

"Really?" Keith looked almost a little awestruck, a soft sort of expression on his face. "Yeah, but without you realizing that our attacks weren't hurting it early on, we both would have been quiznacked."

"But you were the one the literally just  _tackled_  a giant snake monster thing to stop it from ripping my face off!"

"What about you getting it right in the  _mouth_  at the end there. That was an  _incredible_  shot." Keith paused for a moment, a weird expression on his face. "You saved my life."

Lance was about to give him a witty one liner that was definitely not from a really cool movie when the expression on Keith's face and the words that he had just spoken overwhelmed him. He felt like he forgot how to speak in that moment as he stared at the red paladin's, dare he say, thankful and awestruck expression. Deep down in the blue paladin's chest, he felt that strange feeling he had felt a hundred times before whenever he was with Keith. There was a flood of emotion that made it feel like he was drowning and he didn't know what to do.

"Do you think they're coming?" Lance tried to change the topic quickly. He wanted to think about anything else in the world besides the way Keith had just been looking at him. It was just too much.

"God, I hope so," Keith replied. There was something that vaguely sounded like worry in his voice.

"Huh, didn't take you for the religious type," Lance joked, trying to lighten the mood.

"It's a figure of speech Lance," Keith rolled his eyes at his fellow paladin, "I'm not."

"Really? So are you like completely atheist?"

"Why are you asking this?

"I'm bored and I like talking."

"Fair point. Yeah, I guess I am. I think religion is kind of, I don't know... Is that a problem?"

"I mean, no," Lance paused for a moment, "But what do you mean?"

"I just," Keith sighed, "I don't see the point in putting faith in something you're not really sure exists. Why give some all-powerful being the credit for something that you were able to do through hard work and perseverance? And if there really  _were_  a God or something, wouldn't have stopped Zarkon somehow? Or prevented him from doing all this horrible stuff? I just don't get it."

"Well," Lance said, gathering his thoughts, "maybe it's just something to help explain the unexplainable. Maybe it's just like a sort of, I don't know, a way to bring sense to everything, so that all the crazy stuff that happens has a reason for it, a purpose. Like you have a path to follow and you're doing the right thing..."

"Oh." Keith shifted awkwardly next to the blue paladin. "Did I just...?

"It's okay, I get where you're coming from," Lance shrugged, "I used to think like that, actually."

"What changed?"

"Believe it or not, I wasn't really into religion until after that first battle as team Voltron. I was praying that we'd make it through that fight, that we'd win the day."

"We won because we formed Voltron and worked together."

"Yeah, probably," Lance agreed, "but a little divine assistance never hurts to ask for. Just sayin'."

"Mm."

"My mama was a religious woman, you know." Lance had a soft, nostalgic smile on his face. "She had my brothers and my sisters and I going to Sunday school, and we all had communion and confirmation parties. Well, us older kids anyways. I'm probably going to miss a few of those, now that I think about it..."

"A religious party doesn't sound very fun, Lance. Especially for you."

"Well it was a celebration of coming of age stuff, you know? It was family time, and I actually loved every second of it, even if I complained or acted all annoyed and stuff." Lance sighed, looking at some fixed point in the distance. Keith looked as well, but didn't understand what it was that Lance was seeing. He wasn't supposed to. "One of the things I pray for is to see them all again. Just once. To let them know that I'm okay and they don't have to worry about me anymore and stuff. All they know is that I just suddenly vanished from the Garrison one day. They don't know where I am, why I left, if I'm even alive..."

"Yeah, I know what that's like," Keith sighed.

"I thought you said you didn't have anyone back home."

"I meant the  _wondering,_ " Keith snapped. He winced as he felt Lance recoil beside him. "I just... That whole feeling of wondering if they're ever coming back home to you. Counting the days and trying to keep hope that they'll return and but trying not to let your hopes get up too high so that you stop being disappointed when he's not back when you wake up in the morning. Praying and begging for some kind of something to bring your dad back to you because you don't have anyone else left besides him..."

"Woah," Lance murmured, looking at his leader with something of a new perspective.

"If there really was a God, Lance," Keith huffed, "he wouldn't have let that happen."

"I'd probably agree, if I went through that. But I didn't." Keith shot him a mixed look of anger and hurt. The red paladin was about to spit something back when Lance interrupted him. "My mama always told me that God works in mysterious ways. For a while, I thought that was bullshit, until the day after we broke Shiro out of that lab, when we met Blue. When she spoke to me that first time, I just  _knew_  there was something greater at work, something that made it possible for the five of us to be at the same place at the same time, that drew you to Blue over and over again, that made Pidge keep track of Voltron in alien transmissions-it was all too much to be pure chance. I mean, we survived an attack by the Galra after just barely escaping the atmosphere in a giant blue space lion! How crazy is that?"

"But if-"

"I don't have all the answers, Keith," Lance said, a sly smile on his face for just a moment, "so I don't have explanations for why God would let a bunch of awful stuff happen. But I'd like to think there was a reason for everything that's going on. It helps me keep faith that we'll find Shiro. Because honestly? If there wasn't a God and all of this stuff was just  _happening_  for absolutely no reason, and absolutely  _anything_  could happen at any time, I don't think I could get out of bed in the morning."

"You already can't get out of bed in the morning," Keith chided playfully. Lance burst into laughter, loud and boisterous. Keith chuckled lightly, clutching at his ribs as he did. There was a brief silence, but this one was different. It was comfortable, and light.

"You know what?"

"What, Lance?"

"You're not so bad, mullet."

"Oh my  _God._ "

"I'm serious! What the quiznack man, I was being  _nice!_ " Lance's face heated up with humiliation, a pinkish hue appearing on his cheek and nose.

"Oh sure you were, McLame," Keith fired back.

"Wow, very creative one there  _Keef._  Did you come up with that all on your own?"

"Shut your quiznack chatterbox."

Lance stuck out his tongue, but recoiled once he tasted some of the dried blood on his lips. "Oh God that's so gross and salty! Kind of like  _you."_  He smiled, pleased with himself. Keith looked mildly, albeit mostly mockingly, offended before they burst into laughter again. They were interrupted by the sound of the Black Lion roaring to life from above them. "Well, would ya look at that! She's back!" Seemingly not to be outdone, the Red Lion did the same just a heartbeat later.

"I guess we should get back to the castle, then."

"Yes sir, leader Keith!" Lance did a mock salute before struggling to his feet.

"That was the wrong hand, Lance." Keith smiled and shook his head, following suit. He gladly accepted Lance's hand to help pull him up off the ground. They lingered for a moment, standing just a bit too close, their hands still firmly clasping onto each other. The red paladin stayed firmly in place, looking up at his taller companion. Lance looked as though he was about to say something, or even perhaps  _do_  something before he let go of Keith's hand and ducked away, gripping his helmet tightly with two hands. His face was almost as red as Red as he tried to hide his face while limping away. He was fairly certain that something mystical made this all happen, and he just blew up whatever plan the higher power had for him in that moment.

When he got back into Red, he heard her make a noise that almost sounding something like  _laughter_ , but he didn't respond. He was still somewhat flustered over that singular close moment he and his former rival had just shared.

"Are you alright to fly?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm always ready to roll."

"Your eye was pretty messed up, Lance."

"We don't need to see, we just need to trust our lions."

"That sounds like something Allura or Shiro would say."

"Pfft, kind of. Let's just head back and spend a while in the healing pods, then you won't have to fret over this beautiful face any longer." Lance heard a disgruntled huff on the other end of the comm before the Black Lion began to fly. He quickly had Red follow suit, and they began to fly back to the castle. God, why did he have to flirt with Keith just then? That was so unbelievably awkward, especially considering what had literally just happened a minute beforehand.

"Lance?"

"What's up?"

"When we get back and out of the healing pods, do you want to... um..." Keith hesitated. He sounded very uncertain.

"Try and get Allura and Coran to tell us how Altean pools work?" Lance offered.

"Yeah, sure, that." The red paladin hastily replied.

"Sounds like a plan."

**Author's Note:**

> My first story on here, how exciting! I hope you enjoyed it!  
> This was originally a one-off type thing, but I like to leave my endings open just in case, so if you'd like to see more on this kind of storyline, let me know!  
> Also, I'm not really a religious person, but I was made to go to Church fairly frequenly when I was younger. However, I haven't been in a while so some of my info might be wrong. If I wrote anything that doesn't make sense or is offensive please let me know and I'll fix it! :D


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